Aspiring rapper shot while pleading for life

But the next time Carson spoke with Stewart, her opinion of the same woman had dramatically changed, she said.

“All of a sudden she only said nice things about her,” Carson said.

Her son’s former girlfriend had befriended Stewart and had given her a car, she said.

Carson said she has repeatedly tried to talk with the former girlfriend but she gets too upset.

“Everything she said didn’t add up,” she said.

Carson said a homicide detective told her he did not test the former girlfriend’s hands for gunpowder residue because there was no reason to do so.

Later, the same officer said the former girlfriend passed a lie detector test with flying colors.

Carson said shortly before her son died she flew to Denver and spent time with him, her only son.

He had written rap music and was playing his keyboard and rapping every day in hopes of one day becoming a professional recording artist.

“He was a happy-go-lucky person,” Carson said. “He got along with everyone. He had a heart of gold. He would give money to people who needed it to buy food.”

At night, Jenkins cleaned offices downtown.

“I haven’t slept a full night for 1 1/2 years,” Carson said.

Denver police spokeswoman Sharon Avendano said Denver police do not consider Jenkins’ homicide to be a cold case because it has been actively investigated since his shooting.

She said she could not comment about the case.

Contact information: Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Denver Crime Stoppers at (720) 913-7867. Denver Post reporter Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.